Three Days
by madsthenerdygirl
Summary: For all he acts tough and untouchable, he's fucking terrified.


**Title: Three Days**

**Rating: This came from a dream I had. Draw your own conclusions.**

**Summary: For all he acts tough and untouchable, he's fucking terrified.**

**Disclaimer: Am I married to Jensen Ackles? Have Dean and Cas gotten a sex scene on the show? Has Sam cut his hair? No, no, and nooooo.**

**Author's Note: For lastknownwriter, who writes the best Destiel stories in the history of slash fanfiction. No. Really. Go read her stuff.**

He knew it was two a.m. without looking at the digital clock on the dresser. Falling had taken much from him, but his sense of time was still infallible. Perhaps it was because his body instinctively recognized that he now had only a certain amount of time left to him, grains of sand that slipped through and fell away, never to be regained.

He also knew that he needed a shower. That didn't take any special powers of deduction; he'd gotten a lot of blood on him. At least his trenchcoat hadn't been permanently damaged. He could always acquire a new shirt but the coat was rather difficult to replace.

Sam was snoring away at a table, the reading light still on, his face mashed into an open tome. Castiel stumbled past him. This feeling of exhaustion was rather new. His limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated – disjointed, even, like they were no longer a part of a cohesive whole. Sleep would be required, once he'd gotten the dirt off his skin. Dean never seemed to mind when he got splattered with mud and guts but Castiel liked to keep himself clean. There might be something psychological in that. Remnants of his past, he supposed.

The water felt good against his skin, pounding into the now-mortal flesh with soothing heat, loosening the tight, corded muscles and easing the aches. His stomach rumbled slightly. He'd have to eat as well, but that could wait until morning.

Well, technically it was morning already but he wasn't going to bother with trifles. He would eat after he'd slept a decent amount of time. And four hours was not decent (here's looking at you, Dean Winchester).

He toweled himself dry (and when had his hair become so unruly?) but didn't bother with clothes. It was summer, and although the bunker was cooler than outside it wasn't exactly lacking in warmth. Dean was practically a furnace, anyway, and the blankets were comfortable against his skin.

As Castiel approached the bed he slowed, his steps faltering and then stopping altogether. He tilted his head, examining the human before him.

It had taken him a little longer to sense Dean's mood than before, when he could sense the hunter's thoughts or hear his mind screaming at him, but not as long as the former angel had first feared. He simply knew Dean so well by this point that although his angelic abilities had vanished, he could rely upon simple intuition and observation to figure out what was on the hunter's mind.

Right now, it was rather obvious. Dean was having a nightmare.

The hunter's hands were fisted tightly into the sheets, gripping and twisting them in his fingers. His entire body was covered in sweat, glistening like drops of water on pavement, and his body was flushed, making scars old and new stand out against the skin. But it was his face that made Castiel's heart twist. It was buried sideways into the pillows, contorted with pain, his eyes screwed as shut as possible. Rage, grief and horror flashed across his features, making them twist and his jaw clench.

When Castiel had first realized that Dean had such night terrors (because Dean would never admit to them), he had tried to wake Dean. That had proven to be a mistake. Several bruises and black eyes later, Castiel had learned that it was best to simply let Dean feel his presence, to sooth away the dark, twisting thoughts, smoothing out the wrinkles of self-hatred and despair until nothing was left but calming sleep.

But this time, when he slid into bed next to Dean, the hunter made a kind of broken, harsh sob. Castiel froze, half in and half out of bed. Dean had never made that sound before.

He might not have angelic powers anymore, but he still had his memories and he could still act like the angel he had once been. Castiel slotted his hand over the print on Dean's shoulder, gripping him as he had in Hell. And, just like in the Pit, he awoke Dean with two simple, commanding words. He'd called to him, forcing the mangled soul to stop his torture - both of himself and others - calling him to halt. Calling him to turn back to Heaven, turn back to the light. To turn to Castiel.

"Dean Winchester."

The voice was deep and commanding, and it sparked something inside of Dean just as Castiel had hoped it would. The hunted awoke with a violent start, his hands releasing the sheets to grab onto Castiel's arm. That, too, had happened in Hell, although it hadn't been sheets that Dean had been holding.

Dean's eyes were stark and staring, the pupils blown wide with fear. Tears leaked out of the corners and ran down his cheeks, and his chest heaved.

Castiel started to speak, to reassure his mate, but Dean moved before he could even begin to form the words, the sounds shoved back down his throat as Dean crushed their mouths together.

* * *

Three days.

He'd been gone for three days.

That was about two and a half days too long.

Cas deserved to go out on his own, to have an independent hunt, to be his own man – yeah, Dean got all of that. He got all of it before Sammy lectured him for an hour, thank you very fucking much.

Didn't mean that he had to like it.

Fact was the guy was human now. And if that weren't bad enough, he tended to forget that he was human. He'd try to heal Dean's wounds or mojo himself out of a room, his forehead furrowing in confusion for a second before his face went slack as he remembered.

It was painful to watch.

So yeah, Dean was a little concerned about letting Cas go gank someone on his own. Sure, he was a walking weapon, a soldier trained for centuries, and the best in Heaven's Garrison if you asked Dean. But that doesn't change the fact that if you used to be able to smite something and now you can't, if you used to be the most powerful person in the room and now you aren't, if you used to be immortal and now you're painfully, irreversibly, mortally human…

Look, Cas had come back from some pretty crazy shit. And Dean had some high standards when it came to dubbing things 'crazy'. But he'd seen Cas die. Not once, not twice, but three fuckin' times. Sure, when Lucifer ganked him it had lasted a few minutes and Dean had been too busy to even give it that much thought (the shock hadn't hit him until he'd seen Cas reappear) and what had happened in 2014 technically wasn't real, it didn't change what he'd seen. What he'd felt. Watching Cas turn up in front of him and realizing that _holy shit_ he'd gone, vanished, and Dean hadn't even taken a moment to acknowledge it... watching Cas sink down into the mud, turning into something angry and broken and so unlike his angel that Dean had been fucking terrified... He was no fan of the rack but he'd take another turn in Hell any day before he'd let Cas slip through his fingers again.

He'd lost Cas before. What if the next time he couldn't be found?

What if Dean wasn't even there when it happened?

Pretty easy to figure out that he didn't get a lot of sleep the next few days. When he did, nightmares were the flavor of the month. Usually nightmares involved Hell, but these were all about Cas. Every time Cas had died, every time that Cas _could_ die, losing him a thousand times in one night.

It was enough to make a guy kind of wish for insomnia.

This time it was Purgatory. That had been a rough couple of months. Mowing down every son of a bitch that got in between him and Cas. They were all after a little angel snack, and Dean wasn't about to let 'em have him.

But in this dream, they did. They got him. _They got Cas._ And somehow Dean was weaponless and the trees were holding him back which didn't make any sense but since when did dream make sense anyway? And Cas was screaming, Grace leaking out of his wounds and Dean couldn't do anything, could only watch and struggle helplessly, tree limbs tearing into his arms, ripping his clothes, but he didn't care because all he could see was the blood… it was Cas's blood and Cas was screaming… _Cas was screaming..._

Something shifted. Something was there… something beside him…

And then a voice, the voice of something not entirely human and yet, so familiar, so deeply ingrained into his memory that he could feel the voice echoing in his very bones…

_Dean Winchester._

It called to him, and Dean answered. The visions of Purgatory vanished like fog before sun and he found himself in his bed, the sheets tangled around his legs, sweat causing the damp sheets to stick to him.

And Cas was there.

_Son of a bitch._

The former angel was looking at him with a fierce, blazing light in his eyes, something raw and open that Dean hadn't yet had the balls to name. Dean realized he was gripping onto Cas's arm, which was in turn gripping his shoulder, the handprints matching perfectly.

Which didn't make an ounce of sense if you thought about it, because Castiel hadn't been using Jimmy Novak as a vessel when he'd yanked Dean out of Hell but–

And that was about the point that Dean shut his brain down in favor of wrapping his hand around the back of Castiel's neck, pulling him down so that he could smash their mouths together.

Their front teeth clicked together, Dean thought he tasted blood, and his lips were definitely going to bruise later. He didn't care. Cas was the warmest thing he'd ever felt, a kind of soft heat that he fed to Dean through every touch, bringing his soul back to life. Dean rolled them so that he could pin Cas to the bed, sliding his hands up and gently gripping the former angel's wrists, holding them above Cas's head. And Cas let him. Why Cas let him hold him, touch him, love him, Dean didn't know. He was a broken man that ruined everything he touched, lost everyone that got close to him, and nobody knew this better than Cas. And yet the angel was his (because he is an angel, goddammit, _his_ angel, feathers or no).

It was going to send him to Hell all over again but Dean wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth for once.

Cas's mouth was hot, his tongue insistent, working against Dean's until the hunter felt like he was a spool of thread coming undone. Heat was flickering up and down his spine, a clawing craving in his gut. He moved down to suck on Cas's jutting collarbones, willing the blood to rise to the surface, to leave a new kind of bruise on the skin.

There were other bruises, too. Dean could feel them, where the skin felt just a little more tender, where Cas gave a tiny gasp that Dean swallowed when he pressed his thumb to certain points. Dean growled, shutting down his imagination before it could run away with ideas of just how and what had given Cas those bruises, what had dared to try and harm what was his.

Cas sucked in a harsh breath and keened when Dean nipped at the column of his neck, but he didn't try to wriggle out of the hunter's grip. Dean kept one hand around Cas's wrists, moving the other down to grab Cas's ass and position him so that they were aligned just right. God he was fucking _leaking_ already.

Normally he liked to take more time, to run his tongue over every inch of the skin, feeling the muscles jump and twitch beneath him. Normally he also liked to have Cas an active participant (and was that son of a bitch ever an eager – even dominant – participant), but he couldn't do that tonight. He needed to hold Cas, to feel every inch of him, to sink into him until he couldn't tell where he ended and Cas began.

He hooked an ankle to entwine their legs, thrusting slowly, deliberately. Cas groaned, his ryes rolling back into his head. Nobody had ever raised Cas with gender roles, with a laundry list of what was considered manly and what wasn't, with judgment and scrutiny. Nobody had told him that men don't whine and squirm, that men don't cuddle, that men just _don't_. Cas was liberated, and in turn that liberated Dean. Labels didn't matter, the words ingrained into his skull by his dad so many years ago didn't matter, the whole damn world didn't matter. He wasn't gay or bi or straight, he was Dean and he had Cas, and everything else was more than welcome to go and fuck themselves.

Dean slid lower, his hand releasing Cas's wrist as he reached the former angel's pubic bone, nuzzling it before working his way further down. He felt Cas's fingers tangle in his hair, scraping lightly against his scalp. Dean licked a long stripe from the base to the tip, mouthing along the length. He lifted his head to take in the sight of Cas watching him, eyes bright and half-lidded, red, spit-slick lips parted slightly. Dean ducked his head back down, swallowing as much as he could take. He would have grinned at the sound Cas made if it wouldn't have caused him to choke.

Cas's hands moved from Dean's head to the sheets, fisting them the way Dean himself had only a short while ago. His body arched, his hips moving forward instinctively, forcing Dean to push down on his hips to keep Cas still. Dean disengaged with a slurp that, yes, he totally did on purpose. Cas's whimper trailed away into a growl of loss that Dean quickly made to erase, sliding their tongues together again in a meeting of heat and teeth and _God_…

Dean nudged Cas's thighs open so that he could lie between them, working him open as slowly as he could with the fire raging through his veins. Everything went far too fast and yet took forever.

He knew that he'd hit the sweet spot when Cas cried out into Dean's mouth, his back bowing and bringing their bodies together. Dean thrust his fingers in again, curling them just so and was rewarded by being fed more of those delicious moans. Cas grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him back, those blue eyes piercing straight through Dean the way they always had – through his fears, his shields, his self-hatred and anger. They pulled Dean in, making him feel lost and yet found, drowning in bright, soothing cerulean blue.

And then Dean's eyes slammed shut and he couldn't see a damn thing because Cas was touching him, guiding him into position, stroking him and _shit_ how was he supposed to even think properly? When Cas added a twist on the upstroke Dean thought he was going to break his jaw from how tightly his teeth were clenched.

He thrust in carefully, breath stuttering. It was _Cas_, Cas around him, with him, surrounding him, always there and (please dear God if you're not a total bastard) always would be.

He had to reach down and take care of Cas, doing his damndest to take the former angel with him. (And if he was getting mushy over mutual orgasms then he really was growing a damn vagina.) It wasn't going to take much to finish this, and Cas scrabbling at his back with blunt, scraping nails was enough to send him flying to pieces.

It was like there was a bright light infusing him, consuming him, pouring out of every pore in his body, roaring waves that washed not only over him but from him, as if he were the center of it all. The thought kept pounding against him of _Cas Cas Cas_ and _mine mine mine_, holding on with all of his might because he'd finally gotten something good and he was never, ever letting go.

"Dean." Cas murmured, his voice rougher than usual, like sandpaper scraping over rocks. Dean realized he was still on top of Cas, only his arms weren't holding him up anymore, meaning he was kind of squishing the guy. Dean rolled away just enough for Cas to breathe – another new necessity.

Cas was looking at him, eyes hooded and hazy, looking completely and utterly wrecked. It was a pretty damn good look on him. Dean opened his mouth to speak and had to swallow a few times. When he spoke, he realized he must have started yelling at some point because _ouch_. He was going to need some water later. With about a bucket of ice.

"You okay?" He asked. There were a lot of things he would never forgive himself for, a quite the novel of his mistakes, but hurting Cas was definitely something that deserved shooting himself in the face.

Cas blinked, as if the answer should be obvious. "Yes." Then he paused. "Wait – about the fornication or the hunt I just completed?"

Dean groaned, covering his face with a hand. "For the last time, Cas; no using that word. Ever."

"But you also objected to the phrase, 'maki–"

"Both." Dean interjected. "I was asking about both."

"Oh." Cas's eyebrows knit together, and then smoothed out. "The hunt went rather well, considering. I prefer working with you, though."

"Good." Dean huffed out, relieved. "Because you're not leaving my sight again."

"I could tell. I apologize that this experiment took such a toll on you." Cas said earnestly. He leaned in and (didn't nuzzle, because hunters don't _nuzzle_) rubbed his cheek against Dean's, the stubble scratching in a way that was so utterly male and yet didn't matter because none of it mattered with Cas. Especially when the guy reminded him of an oversized kitten. Or maybe an especially cuddly tiger, given the whole "Soldier of Heaven" thing.

Dean would have chuckled, but he didn't have the strength. _Fuck_ he was tired. Three days of minimal sleep and nightmares was more than his thirty-odd body could handle.

Reaching out an arm, he drew Cas to him, the other man obligingly ducking his head and nesting into the crook of Dean's arm.

"You know, we really should clean up…"

"Later, Cas." Dean instructed. "Sleep now."

He thought Cas might have replied, but Dean was already drifting off. He was still scared – fucking terrified, if he were to be honest – but he could hold it back now. He had his angel back, and for a while he could pretend that it would always be like this, that they would always find each other at the end of the day.

For a while, he could dare to think there was hope.

**If you enjoyed this, go read lastknownwriter's stuff, because hers is even better and inspired this. If you didn't enjoy this, then go read her stuff because it's far better than mine and you won't be disappointed. Be sure to leave reviews at every chapter (if you're not good at reviews, practice by leaving one for this story – wink wink nudge nudge).**

**What are you waiting for? Go read her (amazing, fantastic, better than anyone else's) work!**


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